Aircraft brakes typically include a plurality of stator discs and rotor discs which are compressed together during the braking operation of an aircraft. The stator discs and rotor discs are normally arranged in alternating fashion in order to form a brake disc stack.
The stationary, stator discs of the disc stack are arranged in a non-rotating position surrounding an aircraft brake structure or shaft. The rotating, rotor discs are secured to a periphery of the aircraft wheel or shaft and are normally free to rotate with the aircraft wheel when the brake is not in use.
A brake housing may include a plurality of pressure piston actuators that are arranged to provide the compressive, braking force that forces the stator discs and rotor discs of the aircraft brake's disc stack together. Brake adjusters may be employed within the brake to provide adjustment of the relative positions of the brake discs as these frictional components become worn during brake usage. Worn discs need to be replaced in order to maintain a certain level of heat stack mass, as well as ensure the piston stroke. Discarding still usable discs does not make good economic sense for aircraft owners.
In some conventional brake units, a “Balanced” design was adopted to keep the rotor weight approximately the same as the stator weight, so that neither component would get substantially hotter than the other component in the brake unit. However, upon completion of the tours, such “Balanced” design ended up producing many worn one-piece discs, which had to have a significant amount of material ground off if they were to be 2-for-1 refurbished with other one-piece discs. Grinding off usable carbon also does not make good economic sense for aircraft owners.
Due to the cost associated with carbon usage and resources needed to replace and/or refurbish the worn carbon discs, it would be desirable to have a disc brake unit that optimizes the degree of wear on each individual disc. In other words, it would be desirable to have a disc brake unit that makes the most utilization out of each disc before it is discarded or refurbished.
Therefore, there is a need for increasing carbon disc utilization in aircraft brakes to reduce overall operating costs for aircraft owners.